When a terrorist bombing at a New York museum kills 13-year-old Theo Decker’s mother, the beautifully rendered 17th Century painting of a tethered goldfinch that he inadvertently steals becomes Theo’s anchor and his albatross during years of loneliness and loss.

From this premise, and based on the real painting called The Goldfinch, Mississippi-born author Donna Tartt has crafted a sprawling coming-of-age novel. In The Goldfinch she takes Theo from the depths of despair into the upper echelons of New York society, thanks to the friend’s family that initially takes him in. Theo’s shaky stability is soon disrupted, however, when his ne’er do-well father reappears to haul him off to an illusory family life that the gambler Dad has created in Las Vegas. That’s where Theo meets Boris, another cast-off teenager who becomes his true friend and charming co-conspirator as the two enter a shady world of drugs and thievery that they never truly leave.

Rich in character and lush in language, The Goldfinch is destined to please Tartt’s existing fans who have waited for 21 years for another literary blockbuster from her, since the publication of her first novel, The Secret History. Her second book, The Little Friend, disappointed many of those fans because of the lack of resolution of the mystery at its heart; Tartt does not make that mistake here. The Goldfinch’s ending is both unexpected and satisfying, and its plot contains enough action, especially as it nears its climax, that it is bound to be optioned for a film.

It is no surprise to learn that David Copperfield, Oliver Twist and Great Expectations were among the formative books that influenced Tartt’s writing. The Goldfinch is a modern story in the same vein, populated by Dickensian characters, including the ultimately orphaned Theo, James Hobart (“Hobie”), the antique dealer/furniture restorer who loves and saves him, and Lucius Reeve, the Uriah-Heep-like villain who threatens to reveal Theo’s secret about the painting.

Like Tartt’s previous novels, The Goldfinch is long. It would have benefitted from more acute editing. There are lengthy descriptions of furniture restoration, Theo and his fiancée Kitsey’s wedding preparations and even of Theo’s existential angst that could have been trimmed. Tartt’s evocative language, though, is elevated beyond most of what comes across a publisher’s desk, so it’s possible to forgive her editor for not wanting to interfere.

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There are deep layers to Tartt’s prose, and she uses symbolism to build meaning throughout the story. Theo describes his mother repeatedly, for example, in terms that evoke the tiny creature in the painting that he can’t bear to give up: “She moved with a thrilling quickness, gestures sudden and light, always perched on the edge of her chair like some long elegant marsh-bird about to startle and fly away.”

Tartt is also deft and convincing in her descriptions of Theo’s grief, and of the futility and despair that lead him to contemplate suicide. One of the most poignant passages in the book comes early, when Theo tries to persuade himself, in the immediate aftermath of the bombing that his mother will meet him at their apartment: “None of the bodies was her,” he thinks. “But no matter what we had agreed upon beforehand, no matter how much sense it made, somehow I still couldn’t quite believe she had walked away from the museum without me.”

Tartt is clearly drawn to young protagonists; her novels feature those on the cusp of adulthood. She is equally as talented at writing from a young man’s perspective as she is at writing from that of a young woman, and her characters will engross the readers. The damage that flows from Theo’s losses is an accurate portrayal of the lasting effects of early trauma and grief.

I hope it does not take Tartt another 10 years to write her next novel.